


dead hearts are everywhere

by hoars



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Events Happening Behind the Scenes, F/M, Heart Imagery, M/M, Magic Induced Amnesia, Magical Realism, Minor Character Deaths, Over Abundance of Parentheses, Season 3 Leaks Inspired, So Strange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:00:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoars/pseuds/hoars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You don't have a heart left." Peter says. "It was burned from you."</p>
<p>Derek doesn't have a heart left, but it didn't burn.</p>
<p>He gave it away to Kate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dead hearts are everywhere

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Jack in the Box](https://archiveofourown.org/works/560615) by [Vaneh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaneh/pseuds/Vaneh). 



> Inspired partially by Vaneh's Jack in the Box, Meredith Ann Pierce's The Darkangel, one line said by Peter in season two and wikipedia season three notes. Title from Dead Hearts by Stars; although, Together by The xx is more mood appropriate. This piece is a little very odd.
> 
> Minor character deaths are Erica and new season three character Cora.

"You don't have a heart left." Peter says. "It was burned from you."

He just says it. Like it's fact. Peter doesn't even mean to be cruel. He's just being Peter and analyzing behavior.

And he's right.

Derek doesn’t have a heart left, but it didn't burn.

He gave it away to Kate.

All these years, and she kept it.

Chris Argent gives it to him before he and his daughter move away.

"It was in her stuff." Argent says, gruffly.

Kate kept his heart in a box surrounded by dried wolfsbane flowers and velvet lining. Engraved on the top of the box is Derek Hale in polished brass. He can remember the day he gave to her. Hopeful and young and so in love with her. He’d been proud and happy to give it away. Derek touches the box and wants to die all over again.

"I'm sorry." Argent says, face full of pity.

Because this stupid infectious things that used to beat and be healthy was the reason behind everything.

_Everything_.

All these years, and she kept his heart as a trophy.

When he handed it to her, she’d taken it with a smile. She’d been so happy to see it. To hold it in her hands. She stroked his face and kissed him so deeply he was deliriously happy.

Derek doesn't know for sure what he wants to do with it now. Throw it as far as possible. Rip it to shreds to let the birds eat. Bury the damn thing next to his family. He hates his heart so much.

He leaves it in the box and feels his heart too hot and swollen.

Once, the alpha pack approached Laura to join them. Offered Laura and Derek protection from the things nastier than hunters and werewolves. Laura had said no. Kali had sneered at Laura's tiny and bruised heart and called her weak. Deucalion had been watching Derek, smiling and he had asked, "Where's your heart little beta?"

Derek had tried attacking him. Laura stopping him at the last second and all the alphas watched Derek with interest as Laura's fear poisoned the room.

"We want you." They said. "So vicious. You're the type we want. No weakness left inside of you."

"You just have to kill an alpha. Not necessarily your sister."

The alphas had hearts like Derek's. Pieces of coal and ice. Purple-red-black-yellow things twisted by disease and infection. No sign of love and happiness anywhere. Like the textbook cases of personality disorders. Sociopaths. Psychopaths. Mentally ill. Broken. Damaged. Numb hearts all of them.

Surprise, surprise.

Damaged and broken and they came back for Derek.

They're back and still interested.

(That’s never, not really, happened before. Derek doesn't know what to do with people who _want_ him. It makes doing the right thing, what Laura would do, extremely hard.)

Someone wants Derek, and Derek, well, he's out of reasons to say no and people to keep him in check.

(That doesn't feel right. It's like Derek has gaps in his memories. There has to be a reason why he fought them before. Why it took him so long to succumb to their desires. He has white scars down his torso and across his back that he doesn't remember, but make Ennis smirk. He couldn't have gotten them too long ago, he thinks. They were still healing. Did Ennis do it? Were they sparring and got too rough? But he stares into like eyes with like infectious hearts and the memories cease to matter.

“Isn’t life better now, little brother?” Deucalion asks.

“Don’t you feel happier?” Kali whispers.

"What's wrong with him?" Scott asks.

“Let’s fight again, Hale.” Ennis grunts.

“Derek—“ Ethan whispers when it’s only Aiden, him and Derek.

“Something isn’t right.” Aiden finishes.

“Don’t you remember?” They chorus.)

"There he is." Deucalion says proudly. "You're young. But you are one of us. Not a bitten mongrel. You-- you understand what pack means. God knows what Kali sees in the other one. _Scott_."

Maybe if Derek's heart wasn't in a wolfsbane potpourri box never to be unearthed again (that doesn’t feel right either, he put it somewhere, but where?), he'd feel guilty by the horror in Isaac's eyes. The fear in Erica's when she begs for her life and he ends it. Boyd's rage and impotence because he can't defeat Derek with his heart bleeding all over the place.

Hearts make people weak.

Scott is a special project of Kali's. Twist his heart like theirs and watch him self destruct. Have him join the pack.

“He’s interesting.” Kali whispers to Deucalion. “Look at his heart. Beating and hurting and _still_ red.”

Derek doesn't care as long as his throat isn't on the line. Deucalion is the leader. Derek doesn’t have to care about what happens anymore.

(But sometimes, especially when he’s alone with the twins, he thinks he should. He just can’t figure out why. Why does the new alpha, Scott stare at Derek like that?)

Peter, because he's bound and determined to always be on the opposite side of Derek, is working with Deaton and the others. It feels Derek with rage that his only blood would be against him.

(What others? Who else is here for Derek except for Peter? But no. There was Isaac and Erica and Boyd too. Who were these people? Who was Scott? How did Derek know him?)

It shouldn't have come out of the left field. If he could remember, he doesn’t think it would. Stiles meets him alone in the woods – twitching like prey, so afraid but still so stupid, no, brave, he’s always been brave -- and shoves a meaty red thing between Derek's teeth.

Derek chokes on it.

Stiles’ tumbles them backwards. Derek falling on to his back hard. He doesn’t have a choice but to chew. He can’t breathe. It’s like muscle. His jaw aches with the effort and he can’t push Stiles off him. He should be able to. Derek can take Ennis fairly in a fight. He might not always win the spar, but he _can_ win. A human boy with sticks for bones shouldn’t stand a chance, yet Derek can’t throw the teenager off.  

Derek is forced to chew whatever it was Stiles (how does Derek know him? Why can't he remember?) shoved between his teeth and he snarls with hopes of biting Stiles' fingers. He might not be able to throw Stiles backwards or skewer him on his claws – why not, it’d be easy, like poking a hole in bubble foam – but he can threaten him with snapping jaws. He's swallowing the pieces, readying to bite the teenager back into his place, when everything fucking hurts.

He’s thrashing under Stiles, hurting, gasping for air.

“Derek!” Stiles cries.

Stiles' knees hugging his ribs, his fingers grabbing his face.

“Come back. You’ve have to come back.”

Love, happiness, curiosity, admiration, affection, respect, amusement, friendship, all the things Derek’s forgotten come back like a teenage boy crushing him to his back in a bed of leaves. Derek—why would he give up all these wonderful things to be so numb? He receives an answer quickly. Horror, fear, anger, self-loathing, panic, disgust and the crippling urge to crawl away, to die, rising up to wash everything away in a tidal wave of memories.

He roars and roars --it could be crying-- until the night shakes with it and the woods tremble.

“Come one, Wolf-man, you have to remember.” Stiles begs from above him. “You can’t be like them Derek! I won’t let you! Remember, you made me promise!”

Derek remembers.

Deucalion and Kali took six months of memories from him.

How Scott got caught between a love triangle between a hunter capable of protecting herself and a human that needed to be protected. A human girl – her name was Cora -- that was seeking out the alpha pack to receive the bite and had her throat torn open instead. The girl's death making Scott's heart, the one he always envied because it was so damn pretty and clean, fester and pus. It had been Kali's plan.

(“Like seeks like.” She said. “We just have to make him see he’s like us.”

“Too bad it didn’t work, huh.” Aiden smirked.

“Yeah.” Ethan sneered at the irate alpha female. “You just made him pissed with us.”

“It worked.” Deucalion said, nipping Kali’s ear. “It’s a slow building plan.”

“But why?” Derek asked.

“Broken people don’t think.” Deucalion explained. “They act with jagged pieces. If he’s to join our pack, well, he has to get rid of his old one.”

“Oh.” Derek said because that had made sense.)

And eventually it worked pretty well.

Scott tipping Anubis’s Scales of Truth with a heart weighed down by Allison and Cora, Isaac and Stiles, his mom and Peter and Sheriff Stilinski until the feather couldn’t be any higher. His mind breaking and destroying everything to make it all hurt like he did. Scott raged and hung out with the twins. Hurting the humans that trusted him with their welfare. Staying away from Deucalion and Kali and Ennis but sniffing close to them.

Everyone tried to combine forces to save Scott.

It meant Derek had been working closely with Scott's pack. Learning how the other alpha thought from Stiles. Making plans with the newly back Argents to kill the alphas. Watching the twins infatuated with Lydia and Danny and eventually making bargains with them. – “I fucking love her.” Aiden snarled. “I—it was supposed to be a fucking game. To pass the time. Fucking bitch. God, she’s wonderful. – and Ethan, “I can’t lose him. If he finds out who I am. The things I’ve done. I’ll help you guys. Please. Just. I need to prove to him I can do it. I can be good.” -- their hearts going gray and beating too slow but not the shriveled scarred masses they used to be. He remembers Deaton explaining an alpha's role in his head on repeat. Isaac's fear when Scott set out to prove himself by killing his old pack. Peter wrangling dates out of Melissa and spending late nights with the sheriff, helping him through discovering the supernatural was real. Derek _remembers_ Stiles. The too fast way they collided because everything was scary and hurt except for this one little thing that they carved from their bones.

"Derek. Are you you again?" Stiles asks, weary, afraid and hopeful.

Derek doesn’t know how to say anything of the things he should. _I’m sorry_ even if he whined and cried wouldn’t be enough. He pulls Stiles closer, the teenager losing his balance and falling forward, and Derek shoves his face into Stiles’ neck. He smells like he always does. A relief and Derek’s shaking, maybe he’s crying and his cardio muscle is thumping so quickly, little animal fast, to match Stiles’.

“What did you do?” Derek rasps.

“They took your heart.” Stiles whispers. “That’s how they did the magic. Made you forget everything. Ethan and Aiden said it was a witch they have on retainer in Oregon. There was no way to reverse it. We all looked. We looked hard. Peter and Deaton. Me and Lydia. We couldn’t find anything. You were gone. You’d look at me and sometimes it was like you recognized me and that was worse than the times you wouldn’t look at me at all because I was a weak  _human_." Stiles shudders. "The witch destroyed your heart with the spell. The only way to reverse it was if you had a heart.”

“ _Stiles_.” He says softly, reverently.

“I gave you a part of my heart.” Stiles says, cardio muscle still pumping too quickly. “We can share it. Stilinski hearts are big. The bigger to love people with.”

Derek can feel Stiles’ heart warming his insides. Forcing Derek to face all the horrible, but also creating a barrier to put between him and the terrible. Ever since Kate, he’s had doubts when people said to love him. Now he can feel it. In each beat.

Derek melts into the leaves and dirt, Stiles solid on top of him and inside, and tries just to hold on.

"Shhhh. I've got you. I promise. We'll fix it. Everything. Shhhh."

 


End file.
